Cork Taint Rates?!?!?

I don’t think I’m breaking any copyright laws by sharing this - heck, I’m not a subscriber but this was shared on Facebook so I thought I’d share as well.

Lisa Perrotti-Brown is now covering Sonoma wines in addition to covering wines from Australia and New Zealand. She recently conducted a tasting of 900 Sonoma wines over a 7 day period (!!!) and had to discard 7-8% of wines due to TCA.

Now I know - things have gotten so much better . . . . but:

1. My guess is that these were current vintage releases.
2. These were NOT wines from Italy

Things may be ‘getting better’, but I truly and honestly do not believe we are there yet.

So 70-ish wines? Why do I find that kinda hard to believe for current release wines. Or are there winery wide issues that is not related to corks.

Our tasting notes find a 1-2% rate of TCA for Sonoma wines over the last year at 120 wines.

Desperately seeking publicity?

So the rates are higher than others find and folks just don’t want to believe then? What if she said zero cork taint out of 900 bottles?

My guess is that no one would question this . . .

Oh well.

No way I’d believe zero as well. Just as I’d never believe she tasted 900 screw cap wines and none had issues either. But come on, almost 6 cases of wine corked. I’m calling unless some producers have widespread TCA taint in the their winery.

It’s quite possible that she’s unusually sensitive. Some people are. Our own Oliver McCrum posted not long ago on how he had himself tested and found that he can detect TCA at far lower levels than the average person.

I’m not Oliver, but he sounds a lot like me.
For me, experiencing “bad runs” of cork taint can rise to an 8% failure rate. While, typically, the rate is closer to 2% (still too high).

It has seemed to me that rates are lower than they used to be. Empirically from 8% (one per case) to 2% seems about right. Perhaps though i ignore the increasing number of screw tops (or glass) that I open. In any event, 2% is really a crazy high number for introducing a faulty product to market.

I did notice Jeb mentioned on Larry’s FB page about 7% in a recent Santa Barbara tasting compared with 10% in his retro tastings back to 2000.

As an aside, this has been an issue for a long time. It is sad that people on this BB can’t discuss it without trashing Lisa because they don’t like Parker or TWA. Do you really think she lied about this? did you read her Sonoma report? It was well done even if you might find differently. I presume people on this BB have lower rates as they drink better wines that cost more and presumably use better corks.

Did anyone notice in the recent Kale release letter this language?
As we continue to utilize the newest technologies as well as ancient techniques, the wines in this release include the world’s first natural cork with a non-detectable TCA guarantee.

Sensitivity does indeed vary, so is a possible reason. FWIW I’m relatively insensitive to it, but do encounter maybe 1/100 aggressively tainted and maybe 2/100 where I think there is taint but can’t be too sure. All very approximate numbers.

One other possibility for a localised poor showing, is if a major cork shipment came into Sonoma, with high TCA % in it. If the majority of producers take cork from the same shipment, then this could explain a shockingly high figure. The Aussies used to complain that they got the worst corks, causing so many issues that the move to screwcap was given added impetus. Perhaps the Sonoma producers are getting what would have gone to the Aussies?

Finally I have to agree with Larry’s !!! to the number of wines tasted. 900 in a week . This is ‘machismo’ winetasting, and doesn’t give me any confidence in the quality of the tasting notes / judgement, except in the latter case, likely to lead to the boldest / most striking wines coming out on top.

The Wine Spectator last year found 3.83% of the wines they opened in Napa experienced some sort of cork taint. Here are their numbers over the years from this blog post: TCA Cork Tainted Wines Remain Low, but Screwcaps Stay Strong | Wine Spectator

2016: 3.27 percent tainted

2015: 2.63 percent tainted

2014: 4.53 percent tainted

2013: 4.28 percent tainted

2012: 3.73 percent tainted

2011: 3.87 percent tainted

2010: 4.76 percent tainted

2009: 6.9 percent tainted

2008: 7.5 percent tainted

2007: 9.5 percent tainted

2006: 7.0 percent tainted

2005: 7.5 percent tainted

Adam Lee
Siduri Wines

Larry - I don’t know what she tasted but maybe it was just plonk with cheap corks, or as someone else mentioned, a few producers shared a tainted shipment, or maybe it really wasn’t cork taint at all.

Some people are more sensitive than others, and some just don’t know what to call it although they may be extremely sensitive, maybe they’re calling it “earthy” or something similar. And there could have been other issues, like dirty glasses, bacterial problems, or simply just a funky quality.

In any event, it just seems like a really high percentage of corked wines. Not having tasted those same wines, I can’t say, but I find it a bit hard to believe. And it’s not that I have anything against Lisa. She is an MW after all, so that means she can drop in on any region in the world and have something profound to say. There are folks on this board who live in Sonoma and who have tasted far more wines from there than she has and I’d trust them.

I know very little about probability, but really, if the general cork rate is 2%,the probabilities of it rising to 7% in any one series of tastings, given the number of such tastings that journal, or even that critic, does is surely not that low.

Here is what I don’t get - just because some folks find that their rates are around 2% does not mean that the overall rate is. We actually have no idea what ‘actual rates’ are since:

1. Most consumers have no idea what cork taint is and therefore won’t pick it out
2. Even if consumers can pick it out, many, including those on this board, did not try to return said bottles because they feel it is just ‘part of the process’
3. Sensitivities to TCA are all over the place so one person may say ‘corked’ and others may say no, and the ‘loudest’ or ‘most persistent’ may wine out

I trust Lisa or any other wine reviewer when it comes to detecting TCA - and I do not believe there are ‘alterior motives’ at play here at all. Laube for instance is ultra-sensitive - and this has been a positive with regards to systemic TCA issues at Hanzell and Montelena.

It is interesting to see rat3s this high - especially when others, including the Wine Spectator, are finding them lower (but still higher than - see above). But as Loren pointed out, Jeb said that a recent Santa Barbara area tasting last year, he found rates at about 10% (at least for that one tasting).

As far as the ‘quality’ of wines tasted, look at the wineries that submit their wines to the WA and you’ll get an idea that it’s not ‘plonk’ as far as many on this board might be concerned . . .

Cheers.

Larry,
Given that Spectator probably tastes through far more wines from Cali than WA does, I’d be inclined to believe their overall rates of TCA as a much more reliable set of numbers. The problem I’ve seen is no one seems to track the details of each bottle that is tainted. How does one try to solve a problem if one doesn’t look at exactly where it’s coming from.


So again, the questions that need to be answered are;

1- Were there certain wineries that had more issues than the average (possibly indicating a winery wide issue)?

2- Were the bad bottles a pretty even spread across all types of bottles (wines) tasted? In other words, which had more TCA rates, more expensive corks or less expensive corks.

3- Are wineries testing batches of corks before using them?

4- How are wineries storing their corks before use?

Just some of the questions that need to be addressed. I am sure there are more.

In my experience (not scientific) 1 bad bottle out of every three cases (36 bottles) does feel about right and this is a 3% failure rate. I agree this is still way too high and not acceptable, but good to see the trend seems to be improving.

Someday, future generations will look back at sealing bottles with tree bark and shake their heads… the same way we look back at past generations using leeches to cure health issues

Your cork taint rate will obviously be affected by how sensitive you are to TCA. The cork suppliers seem to assume that the normal person’s threshold is 2.0 ppt, mine is lower, and so is that of everyone in my company.

The worst rates I’ve experienced are with poor quality agglomerated corks; we have had a number of shipments of wine that were 100% corked over my threshold, but under 2.0 ppt. I don’t know how much agglomerated cork (other than Diam) is used in the US.

It’s better than it used to be, but still ridiculous.

I think so too.

Interesting. 7-8% definitely a bit of a head-scratcher for me.

Have not personally seen a rate like that over my tasting life (40+ years; 35 ITB), & I’m quite sensitive to TCA.

There were a large # of wines, although just one tasting.

I don’t keep track per se, but estimate my rate has over time has hovered mostly in the 1% to 1.5% rate over ballpark 10-12K+ wines (many types/ages) tasted.

Happy I’ve been so “Lucky”.

The cork industry did get a big kick in the ass a dozen years or so ago, with competition from man-made stuff (never saw one I liked), & upped their game. There has been (seemingly) steady increase in screw-cap.

I’m still firmly in the sky is not falling school.